Linking analytic hierarchy process and social choice methods to support group decision-making in water management

The social choice (SC) theory is in close relation with multicriteria decision-making (MCDM), especially in group decision contexts. SC theory includes various voting systems while MCDM is represented by utility and outranking methods; among utility models, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is probably the most popular in group decision support. In this paper, we investigate two possible contexts in modeling decentralized decision problems in water management. The first is based on AHP only and two group aggregation techniques. The second one assumes the AHP application in subgroups, while at a group level, aggregation is performed by the SC voting procedures. Comparative analyses show good agreement of the results when two methodologies are applied as the decision support to the water committee of the San Francisco river basin in Brazil. The second methodology (called AHP + SC) is considered more promising for implementation in real-decision situations in water management.